OrthrosGnosis

Those who are followers of Jesus Christ should be moving forward in life with a foundation of humility and sacrifice for others. It is not our place to see comfort, money, and glory, but to make our faith and devotion to Jesus Christ the goal of our lives.

The people of God are those who have been baptized into Jesus Christ, who have embraced him as the Messiah, and who are pursuing holiness, loving God, and loving neighbor. No longer is it a matter of following the Mosaic law or being Jewish. It is each man's responsibility to put his time, effort, and money toward building for a glorious eternity. As the people of God, we need to build everyth...

Taking the label Christian upon yourself means practicing and believing what Jesus taught the disciples, what the apostles passed down to the first-generation Church and what the Church has always believed and practiced. The Christian should be known by the name Christian, not the name of any other man or denomination invented in the recent past.

As part of the Church, men need to stop demanding their rights and freedoms and instead focus on living, speaking, and thinking in a way that will help others move toward holiness. The Christian life is not about comfort and ease but about struggling against temptation.

After Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared to his disciples and proved that he was not dead and had physically risen. He has a physical body and ate food in their presence. They then worshiped him as he ascended to the right hand of the Father.

The Apostle Paul took the encyclopedic knowledge he had of religion and philosophy and re-interpreted it through the lens of Jesus as the Messiah, fulfilling the Old Covenant and restoring the relationship between God and mankind.

The path you choose to follow will continue to lead you in that direction unless something drastic happens to change that. The man who chooses to pursue holiness will slowly become truly human, will be light and love and peace, the ultimate path to sanctification.

When Jesus ascended to the Father, he gave the Church the Holy Spirit to fill and guide, to intercede for and protect. This means that what Jesus taught the apostles, the apostles taught to the first-generation Church, and this has been happening with each generation.

When the Apostle Paul speaks of law and works, he is talking about not being under the authority of Mosaic law but instead, we are to love God, love neighbor, and pursue holiness. Being part of the people of God is not about law or about being ethnically Jewish.

Paul makes two strong points in this passage from his letter to the Hebrews. One, the early followers of God underwent actual, horrific oppression, torture, and abuse, of which modern day Western Christians have no idea or experience. Two, the incarnation brought about freedom from sin and death, so that mankind now exists in a one-story reality. The Church is one, whether one is physically alive...

The arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is about the formation, the identification, and the articulation of the Church as filled and guided by the Holy Spirit. Being part of the people of God is not about being Jewish or being involved in the temple in Jerusalem. It is about embracing Jesus Christ as the only path to eternal life.

Paul specifically addresses the problem of private interpretation, even among those in the Church. False teachers will arise and the Church needs to be attentive to this and address this. Being part of the Church is not about being wealthy or comfortable but about loving God and loving your neighbor.

The apostles were often arrested, beaten, and imprisoned, yet remained faithful to their responsibility. In most situations in our lives, we don't understand what is happening or how our words and actions can positively impact others. Our comfort and pleasure is not what matters, what matters is being faithful, loving God, and loving our neighbor.

Sometimes it takes something tragic and sad to move us to act. Sometimes we need the difficult to move forward and take that scary first step. When Stephen became the first martyr, other believers fled from Jerusalem and took the gospel out into the known world, achieving great success. From this the Church was formed in Antioch, eventually led by and built up by Barnabas and Paul.

At the pool of Bethesda, Jesus asked the man if he wanted to be healed. In the same way, we must respond to Jesus' work of freeing us from the power of sin and death. We must say 'yes', I want to pursue holiness so as to be truly human.

There is one holy, apostolic Church, that which Jesus established with the apostles and what the apostles handed down to the next generation, and this has continued by apostolic teaching to this day. Private interpretation is not an option, those who call themselves Christian must believe and practice what the Church has always believed and practiced.

In the book of Acts, we read about the Apostles continuing Jesus' work by bringing the Gospel to the surrounding nations and across the known world. It is no longer about a Jew/Gentile distinction. It is only those who have embraced Jesus as the Messiah and those who have not.

The book of Acts picks up where the gospels left off. Jesus Christ has physically resurrected and has continued teaching is apostles, preparing them for the coming and filling of the Holy Spirit, the formation of the Church and for planet wide preaching of the Gospel. He is not leaving them alone but is giving them the Holy Spirit to fill and guide them, to bring the gospel everywhere, regardless...

The Christian life, being part of the people of God, being part of the Church is not about academics. It is about faith, trust, and filling oneself with that which is good, right, beautiful, true, and pure. It is when we distract ourselves with the confusion and chaos of the world that we become lost and drive ourselves away from God. We need to live and believe what the historic Christian faith h...

One has a choice to make. One can live like a child with someone else acting in authority over them, or one can choose the freedom of adulthood and the responsibility that comes with it. This is the contrast between life outside of the Christian faith and inside of it, respectively speaking. As part of the Church, we have the freedom to be truly human, unrestrained by the foolishness of sin.

In any relationship, we must be careful and honest with our words. If we make promises, we need to keep those promises. In the face of dishonesty, we will lose everything for which we have worked in the relationship, unless someone else intervenes. Which is the Apostle Paul's point here in the epistle to the Hebrews. Mankind consistently and regularly failed but Jesus intervened and restored t...

It is only as truly God and truly man that Jesus Christ is able to destroy the power of death and sin and is able to restore mankind to a right relationship with God. This was the purpose of the incarnation, as mankind was hopelessly lost and fallen, unable to save himself. Salvation is found only through Jesus Christ. There is no other path to eternal life, anyone teaching anything otherwise is d...

Knowing your audience and understanding their way of thinking is vital in order to successfully communicate. This is one of the arguing points behind the authorship of the epistle to the Hebrews. The Church has always acknowledged the Apostle Paul as it's author, despite its different writing style, which Paul used to address Jews who embraced Jesus as the Messiah.

Being part of the people of God, at any time in history, is about being faithful and trusting God to keep his promises, and not finding value in the comforts of this earthly life. Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of our faith, those before the incarnation, during the incarnation, and after the incarnation. There is one people of God as Paul explains in the book of Hebrews.

The Apostle Paul describes the time before and after the resurrection as the former being darkness and the latter being light. We have been freed from the power of sin and death and it is our responsibility to pursue holiness and now allow our desires to rule over us. And also, never judge anyone else, judge yourself and pursue holiness.